'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation

Aaron Hill

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Preface to The Creation, by Aaron Hill

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Title: 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation

Author: Aaron Hill

Commentator: Gretchen Graf Pahl

Release Date: May 20, 2005 [EBook #15870]

Language: English

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Series Four

Men, Manners and Critics

No. 2

Anonymous, "Of Genius", in

The Occasional Paper,

Volume III, Number 10 (1719)

and

Aaron Hill, Preface to

The Creation

(1720)

With an Introduction by

Gretchen Graf Pahl

The Augustan Reprint Society

March, 1949

Price: One Dollar

GENERAL EDITORS

RICHARD C. BOYS,

University of Michigan

EDWARD NILES HOOKER,

University of California, Los Angeles

H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR.,

University of California, Los Angeles

ASSISTANT EDITOR

W. EARL BRITTON,

University of Michigan

ADVISORY EDITORS

EMMETT L. AVERY,

State College of Washington

BENJAMIN BOYCE,

University of Nebraska

LOUIS I. BREDVOLD,

University of Michigan

CLEANTH BROOKS,

Yale University

JAMES L. CLIFFORD,

Columbia University

ARTHUR FRIEDMAN,

University of Chicago

SAMUEL H. MONK,

University of Minnesota

ERNEST MOSSNER,

University of Texas

JAMES SUTHERLAND,

Queen Mary College, London

Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author

by

Edwards Brothers, Inc.

Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

OF GENIUS

THE CREATION

THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

[Transcriber's Note: Some of the latin footnotes and the errata were difficult or

impossible to read. These are annotated.]

INTRODUCTION

The anonymous essay "Of Genius," which appeared in the

Occasional Paper

of 1719, still considers "genius" largely a matter of aptitude or talent, and

applies the term to the "mechanick" as well as the fine arts. The work is, in fact,

essentially a pamphlet on education. The author's main concern is training, and

study, and conscious endeavor. Naturally enough, his highest praise—even

where poetry is in question—is reserved for those solid Augustan virtues of

"judgment" and "good sense."

And yet the pamphlet reveals some of the tangled roots from which the later

concept of the

"original"

or

"primitive"

genius

grew. For

here

are

two

prerequisites of that later, more extravagant concept. One is the author's

positive delight in the infinite differences of human temperaments and talents—

a delight from which might spring the preference for original or unique works of

art. The

other is his conviction

that there

is something

necessary and

foreordained about those differences: a conviction essential to faith in the artist

who is apparently at the mercy of a genius beyond his own control. The

importance of this latter belief was long ago indicated in Paul Kaufman's

"Heralds of Original Genius."

While his tone is perhaps more exuberant than that of most of his immediate

contemporaries, there is nothing particularly new in our author's interest in

those aspects of human nature which render a man different from his fellows. It

is true that the main stress of neoclassical

thought had rested on the

fundamental likeness of all men in all ages, and had sought an ideal and

universal norm in morals, conduct, and art. But there had always been counter

currents making for a recognition of the inescapable differences among various

races and individuals. Such deviations were often merely tolerated, but toward

the close of the seventeenth century more and more voices had praised human

diversity. England, in particular, began to take notice of the number of

"originals" abounding in the land.

At least as old as the delight in human differences was the belief in the

foreordained nature of at least those differences resulting in specific vocational

aptitudes. This is the conviction that each man has at birth—innately and

inevitably—a peculiar "bent" for some particular contribution to human society.

Environment is not ignored by the man who wrote "Of Genius," for he insists

that each man's bent may be greatly developed by favorable circumstances

and proper education, and, conversely, that it may be entirely frustrated by

unpropitious circumstances or wilful neglect. But in no way can a man's inborn

talent for one thing be converted to a talent for anything else.

In the works of many Augustan writers, too, it is easy to see how the

enthusiasm

for

individualism,

later

to

become

one

of

the

hallmarks

of

romanticism, actually sprang from an earlier faith in a God-directed universe of

law and order. There is a kind of universal law of supply and demand, and the

argument is simply that each link in the human chain, like those in the animate

and inanimate worlds above and below it, is predestined to a specific function

for the better ordering of the whole. Lewis Maidwell, for instance, still employs

the medieval and Renaissance analogy of the correspondence between the

human body and the social organism (

An Essay upon the Necessity and

Excellency of Education

):

Upon Consideration we find this Difference of Tempers to

arise from Providence, and the Law of the Creation, and

to be most Evident in al Irrational, and Inanimat Beings ... One

Man is no more design'd for Al Arts, than Al Arts

for One Man. We are born Confaederats, mutually to help

One another, therefor appropriated in the Body Politic,

to this, or that Busyness, as our Members are in the

Natural to perform their separat Offices.

This same comparison between the body politic and the body human occurs in

the essay of 1719, and even the author's chief analogy drawn from musical

harmony bears with it some of the flavor of an older system of universal

correspondences. His comparison of the force of genius to the pull of gravity,

however, evokes a newer picture. Yet it is a picture no less orderly and one

from which the preordained function of each individual could be just as logically

derived.

And

his

rhapsodic

praise

of

the

infinite

diversity

of

human

temperaments is based on that favorite comparison with natural scenery and

that familiar canon of neoclassical esthetics: ordered variety within unity,

whether it be in nature or in art.

The author of the pamphlet of 1719 introduces another refinement on the idea

of an inborn bent or genius. A man is born not only with a peculiar aptitude for

the vocation of writing, but with a peculiar aptitude for a particular

style

of

writing. Some such aptitude had presumably resulted in that individuality of

style, that particular "character," which 17th-century Biblical critics were busily

searching out in each of the writers of Scripture.

Individuality or originality in the form or plan of a work of art, however, was quite

another thing, and praise of it far more rare. Yet there had always been protests

against the imposition of a universal classical standard, and our author's

insistence that some few geniuses have the right to discard the "Rules of Art"

and all such "Leading-strings" follows a well-worn path of reasoning. His

scientific analogy, drawn from those natural philosophers who had cast off the

yoke of Aristotle and all "other Mens Light," is one which had appeared at least

as early as 1661 in Robert Boyle's

Considerations Touching the Style of Holy

Scripture

. It had been reiterated by Dryden and several others who refused to

recognize an

ipse dixit

in letters any more than in science.

It must be noted, however, that this rejection of authority for a few rare

individuals in no way constitutes a rejection of reason or conscious art. The

genius has the right to cast off the fetters only after he has well studied them.

Only in one instance does our author waver toward another conception. This is

when he pauses to echo Rowe's preface to Shakespeare and Addison's

famous

Spectator

no. 160. Then indeed he boasts that England has had many

"Originals" who, "without the help of Learning, by the meer Force of natural

Ability, have produc'd Works which were the Delight of their own Times, and

have been the Wonder of Posterity." But when he doubts whether learning

would have helped or "spoiled" them, it is hard to escape the conclusion that he

is still poised on the horns of the typical neoclassical antithesis: that supposed

enmity between reason, which was generally thought to create the form of the

poem, and the emotions and imagination, which were considered largely

responsible for its style.

Only when the admiration for such emotional and imaginative qualities should

outweigh the desire for symmetrical form; when "primitive" literature should be

preferred to Virgil and Horace; and when this preference should be joined with

a belief in the diversity and fatality of literary bents—only then could the

concept of original genius burst into full bloom.

In Aaron Hill's preface to the paraphrase of Genesis, published in 1720, we find

no preoccupation with the fatality of temperament and style. But we do find a

rising discontent with the emptiness and restraint of much contemporary verse,

and a very real preference for a more meaningful and a more emotional and

imaginative poetry. We find, in fact, a genuine appreciation for the poetry of the

Old Testament—a poetry which Biblical scholars like Le Clerc were already

viewing as the product of untrained primitives.

Hill was not alone in his admiration for Biblical style, for the praise of the

"unclassical" poetry of the Bible, which had begun in the Renaissance, had

swelled rather than diminished during the neoclassical age. By the second

decade of the 18th century such Augustans as Dennis, Gildon, and Pope were

crying up its beauties. Not all agreed, of course, on just what those beauties

were. And still less did they agree on the extent to which contemporary poetry

should imitate them.

One thing upon which almost all would have agreed, however, was the

adoption of the historical point of view in the approach to Hebrew poetry. Yet

many of Hill's predecessors had stopped short with the historical justification.

Blackmore, for instance, had condemned as bigots and sectarians all those

who denied that the Hebrew way was as great as the classical. He had

pronounced it a mere accident of fate that modern poetry of Western Europe

was modeled on that of Greece and Rome rather than on that of ancient Israel.

But he had been perfectly willing to accept that fate—and to remodel the form

and style of the book of Job on what he considered the pattern of the classical

epic.

Hill is as far as most of his contemporaries from appreciating such a literal

translation as the King James Version. On the other hand, he is one of a small

group of critics who were beginning to see that at least certain aspects of

Biblical

style were of universal

appeal; that they might be as effective

psychologically for the modern Englishman as for the ancient Jew. And he sees

in this collection of ancient Oriental literature a corrective for some of the worst

tendencies of a degenerate contemporary poetry.

Hill's attack upon the current preoccupation with form and polish, and his

contempt for mere smoothness, for the padded redundancy of Addison and the

elaborate rhetoric of Trapp, are all part of a campaign waged by a small group

of critics to make poetry once again a vehicle of the very highest truth. He

insists, too, that great thought cannot be contained within the untroubled

cadences of the heroic couplet. His own preference led to the freer, though

currently unfashionable, Pindaric, the irregularity of which seemed justified by

Biblical example, for despite a century and a half of study and speculation the

secret of Biblical verse had not been solved and to most critics even the

Psalms appeared devoid of any pattern. Indeed, Cowley had declared that in

their freedom of structure and abruptness of transition the odes of Pindar were

like nothing so much as the poetry of Israel.

In addition, Hill would have the modern poet profit by another quality of Biblical

style: its magic combination of a "magnificent Plainness" with the "Spirit of

Imagery." This is the Hebrew virtue of concrete suggestiveness, so highly

prized by 20th-century critics and so alien to the generalized abstractions and

the explicit clarity of much 18th-century poetry.

In consonance with those who believed poetry best communicated truth

because it appealed to man's senses and emotions as well as to his logical

faculty, Hill praises those "pictur'd Meanings of Poetry" which "enflame a

Reader's Will, and bind down his Attention." Yet his analysis of Trapp's

metaphorical expansions of Biblical imagery reveals that Hill does not like

detailed descriptions or long-drawn-out comparisons. Instead, he admires the

Hebrew ability to spring the imagination with a few vividly concrete details.

Prior to Hill one can find, in a few paraphrasers and critics like Denham and

Lamy, signs of an appreciation of the concrete suggestiveness of the Bible, but

most of the hundreds of paraphrasers had felt it desirable to expand Biblical

images to beautify and clarify them. Hill was apparently the first to prove the

esthetic loss in such a practice by an analysis of particular paraphrastic

expansions.

Despite his theory, however, Hill's own paraphrase seems almost as artificial

and un-Biblical as those he condemns. He often forgets the principles he

preaches. But even in his preface there is evident a blind spot that is a mark of

his age. His false ideas of decorum, admiration for Milton, and approval of

Dennis's interpretation of the sublime as the "vast" and the "terrible," all lead

him to condemn the "low" or the familiar. And his own efforts to "raise" both his

language and his comparisons to suit the "high" Biblical subject, result in

personifications, compound epithets, and a Miltonic vocabulary, by which the

very simplicity he himself found in the Bible is destroyed.

Another decade was to pass before John Husbands would demonstrate a clear

appreciation for the true simplicity of the Bible and praise its "penmen" in terms

close to those employed to describe original genius.

Gretchen

Graf Pahl

Pomona

College

The essay "Of Genius," from the

Occasional Paper

(1719), is reproduced from a

copy in the New York Public Library. The typescript of Aaron Hill's preface is

based on a copy in the Henry E. Huntington Library. Both works are used with

permission.

THE

OCCASIONAL PAPER.

VOL. III. NUMB. X.

OF

GENIUS.

The Cartesian

Categories are contain'd in these two

Verses,

Mens, mensura, quies, motus, positura, Figura, Sunt,

cum materia, cunctarum Exordia rerum.

The Spiritual Nature

, Mens,

is at the head of All. It

ought to be look'd on here, as a Transcendent Nature,

quæ vagatur per omnes Categorias.

Bayle's Diction.

on the Heathen Doctrine of

many

Genij. See

CAINITES

.

LONDON:

Printed for EM. MATTHEWS at the

Bible

in

Pater-Noster-Row

; J. ROBERTS, in

Warwick-Lane

; J. HARRISON, under the

Royal Exchange

; and A. DODD, without

Temple-Bar

. MDCCXIX.

OF GENIUS.

It is a Matter of common Observation, that there is a vast Variety in the Bent of

Mens Minds. Some have a Taste of one Way of Living, some of another; some

have a Turn for one kind of Employment, others for what is quite different.

Whether this be from the Constitution of the Mind itself, as some Soils are more

apt to produce some Plants and Herbs than others; or from the Laws of Union

between the Body and Mind, as some Climates are more kindly to nurse

particular Vegetables than others; or from the immediate Impulse of that Power

which governs the World, is not so easy to determine.

We ascribe this to a difference of

Genius

amongst Men.

Genius

was a Deity

worshipped

by

the Ancient Idolaters: Sometimes

as

the

God

of

Nature

;

sometimes as the God of a particular

City

or

Country

, or

Fountain

, or

Wood

, or

the like; sometimes as the Guardian and Director of a

single Person.

Exuitur,

Geniumq; meum

prostratus adorat.

Propert.

l

. 4.

El.

9 V. 43.

The Heathens had a Notion, that every Man upon his Birth was given up to

the

[A]

Conduct of some invisible Being, who was to form his Mind, and govern

and direct his Life. This

Being

the

Greeks

called

[B]

Δαιμων or Δαιμονιον the

Latins

,

Genius

. Some of them suppos'd a

[D]

Pair of

Genij

were to attend every

Man

from his Birth; one Good, always putting him on the Practice of Virtue; the

other Bad, prompting him to a vicious Behaviour; and according as their several

Suggestions were most attended to, the Man became either Virtuous or Vicious

in his Inclinations: And from this Influence, which the

Genius

was suppos'd to

have towards forming the Mind, the Word was by degrees made to stand for the

Inclination itself. Hence

[E]

indulgere Genio

with the

Latins

signifies, to give

Scope to Inclination, and more commonly to what is none of the best. On the

other Hand,

[F]

Defraudare Genium

, signifies to deny Nature what it craves.

Ferunt Theologi, in lucem editis Hominibus cunctis, Salva firmitate

fatali,

bujusmodi

quedam,

velut

actus

vectura,

numina

Sociari:

Admodum tamen paucissimis visa, quos multiplices auxere virtutes.

Idque & Oracula & Autores docuerunt praclari

. Ammian Marcel Lib. 21.

Ἁ

παντι Δαιμων ανδρι συμπαρισταται

Ευθυς γενομενω μυσταγωγος του βιου. Μenan.

Scit

Genius

Natale

comes,

qui

temperat

Astrum,

Nature

Deus

Humana. Horat.

[Transcriber's Note: This footnote is not seen in the text]

Volunt unicuique Genium appositum Damonem benum & malum, hoc

est

rationem qua ad meliora semper boriatur, & libidinem qua ad pejora,

hic est Larva & Genius malus, ille bonus Genius & Lar. Serv. in Virgil,

Lib. 6. v. 743.

Indulge Genio: carpamus dulcia

. Pers. Sat. 5.

Suum defraudans Genium.

Terent. Phorm. Act 1.

But a

Genius

in common Acceptation amongst

us

, doth not barely answer to

this Sense. The

Pondus Animæ

is to be taken into its Meaning, as well as the

bare

Inclination;

as

Gravitation

in

a

Body

(to

which

this

bears

great

Resemblance) doth not barely imply a determination of its Motion towards a

certain Center, but the

Vis

or Force with which it is carried forward; and so the

English

Word

Genius

, answers to the same

Latin

Word, and

Ingenium

together.

[G]

Ingenium

is the

Vis ingenita

, the natural Force or Power with which every

Being is indued; and this, together with the particular Inclination of the Mind,

towards any Business, or Study, or Way of Life, is what we mean by a

Genius

.

Both are necessary to make a Man shine in any Station or Employment.

Nothing considerable can be done against the Grain, or as the

Latins

express

i t,

invita Minerva

, in spite of Power and Inclination, "Forc'd Studies, says

[H]

Seneca

, will never answer: The Labour is in vain where Nature recoils."

Indeed, where the Inclination towards any Thing is strong, Diligence and

Application will in a great Measure supply the Defect of natural Abilities: But

then only is in a finish'd

Genius

, when with a strong Inclination there is a due

Proportion of Force and Vigour in the Mind to pursue it.

Ingenium quasi intus genitum

.

Male respondent ingenia coacta; reluctante naturâirritus Labor est.

There is a vast Variety of these Inclinations among Mankind. Some there are

who have no bent to Business at all; but, if they could indulge Inclination, would

doze out Life in perpetual Sloth and Inactivity: Others can't be altogether Idle,

but incline only to trifling and useless Employments, or such as are altogether

out of Character. Both these sorts of Men are properly good for nothing: They

just live, and help to

[I]

consume the Products of the Earth, but answer no

valuable End of Living, out of Inclination I mean; Providence and good

Government have sometimes made them serviceable against it.

[A]

[B]

[C]

[D]

[E]

[F]

[G]

[H]

Fruges consumere nati

. Horat.

The better, and in Truth only valuable, Part of Mankind, have a Turn for one sort

of Business or other, but with great variety of Taste. Some are addicted to deep

Thought

and

Contemplation:

Some

to

the

abstracted

Speculations

of

Metaphysicks; some to the evident Demonstrations of the Mathematicks; some

to the History of Nature, built upon true Narration, or accurate Observations and

Experiments: Some to the Invention of

Hypotheses

, to solve the various

Phenomena

. Some affect the study of Languages, Criticism, Oratory, Poetry,

and such like Studies. Some have a Taste for Musick, some for History and

those Sciences which must help to Accuracy in it: Some have Heads turned for

Politicks, and others for Wars. Some few there are of such quick and strong

Faculties, as to grasp at every thing, and who have made a very eminent Figure

in several Professions at once. We have known in our Days the same Men

learned in the Laws, acute Philosophers, and deep Divines: We have known

others at once eloquent Orators, brave Soldiers, and finished Statesmen. But

these Instances are rare.

The more general Inclination among Men is to some Mechanical Business. Of

this there is most general Use for the Purposes of Human Life, and it needs

most Hands to carry it on. The bulk of Mankind seem turned for some or other of

these Employments, and make them their Choice; and were not such a

multiplicity of Hands engaged in them, great part of the Conveniencies of

Human Life would be wanting. But even the Multitude of these Employments

leaves room for great variety of Inclinations, and for different

Genij

, to display

and exert themselves.

This is an admirable and wise Provision to answer every End and Occasion of

Mankind, for a sure and harmonious Concurrence of Mens Actions to all the

necessary and useful Affairs of the World. When in very different Ways, but with

equal Pleasure and Application, they contribute to the Order and Service of the

whole.

Mr.

Dryden

has given an Hint, how we may form a beautiful and

pleasing Idea of this from the Powers of Musick, that arise from the Variety and

artful Composition of Sounds.

From Harmony, from Heavenly Harmony,

This Universal Frame began.

From Harmony to Harmony,

Thro' all the Compass of the Notes it ran,

The Diapasm closing full in Man.

There seems to be a wonderful Likeness in the natural Make of Mens Minds to

the various Tones and Measures of Sounds; and in their Inclinations and most

pleasing Tastes to the several Styles and Manners of Musick. Something there

is in the Mind, of alike Composition, that is easily touch'd by the kindred

Harmony of Musick,

For Man may justly tuneful Strains admire,

His Soul is Musick, and his Breast a Lyre

.

We have all the Materials of Musick in the Tones and Measure. For the infinite

Variety Composition admits of, can be nothing else, but higher or lower Tones,

stronger or softer Sounds, with a slower or swifter Motion. The Artist, by an

harmonious Mixture of these, makes the Musick either strong and martial, brisk

and airy, grave and solemn, or soft and moving.

There seems to be in Man a Composition of natural Powers and Capacities, not

unlike to these. From hence I would take the first Original of their distinguishing

Genij

. The Words by which they are usually explain'd, have a manifest Allusion

[I]